France was to guarantee
him against any eventuality.

These instructions fell into the very hands of those whose fidelity was
thus priced, and they gave them to the king with all the innocence of
individuals shamefully calumniated. The king blushed for himself at the
empire over his politics thus ascribed to love and intrigue. He was
indignant at the fidelity of his subjects being thus assailed: all
negotiation was nipped in the bud before the arrival of the negotiator.
M. de Segur was received with coldness and all the irony of contempt.
Frederic Willam affected never to mention him in his circle, and asked
aloud before him, of the envoy of the elector of Mayence, news of the
Prince de Conde: the envoy replied that this prince was approaching the
frontiers of France with his army. "He is right," said the king, "for he
is on the point of entering there." M. de Segur, accustomed, from his
long residence and his familiar footing at the court of Catherine, to
take love for the intermediary of his affairs, induced, it is said, the
countess d'Ashkof and prince Henry of Prussia to join the peace party.
This success was but a snare for his negotiation. The king, arranging
with the emperor, affected for some time to lean towards France, to
complain of the exactions of emigration, and to make much of the
ambassador; who, thus cajoled, sent the warmest assurances to the French
cabinet as to the intentions of Prussia. But the sudden disgrace of the
countess d'Ashkof and the offer of alliance with France insultingly
repulsed, threw at once light and confusion into the plots of M. de
Segur: he demanded his recall. The humiliation of seeing his talents
played with, the hopes of his party annihilated, the prospect of his
country's misfortunes, and Europe in flames, had, it was reported, urged
his sadness to despair. The report ran that he had attempted his life.
This imputed suicide was but a brain fever occasioned by the anguish of
a proud mind deeply wounded.

XXII.

The same party attempted, and at nearly the same time, to acquire for
France a sovereign whose renown weighed as heavily as a throne in the
opinion of Europe. This was the duke of Brunswick, a pupil of the great
Frederic, the presumed heir of his military fame and inspiration, and
proclaimed, by anticipation, by the public voice, generalissimo, in the
coming war against France. To carry off from the emperor and the king of
Prussia the chief of their armies, was to